Nest, now a Google subsidiary, starts selling video doorbell

Nest’s new $229 doorbell, called “Nest Hello,” will notify users on an app when someone is at their door. If the user opts to use Google’s digital assistant, his or her Nest Cam and Google Home speakers will also say out loud, “Someone’s at the front door.”

Photo: Nest

Nest has started selling a $229 Internet-connected video doorbell that provides notification through an app when someone is at the door and sends an alert across Google-branded speakers in a user’s home.

The integration, announced Wednesday, illustrates the collaboration between Nest and Google. Google purchased Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion, but in 2015 each became a separate division within Alphabet. Last month, Nest went back to being part of Google, with its CEO, Marwan Fawaz, reporting to Google’s senior vice president of hardware, Rick Osterloh.

Nest had struggled during its time as a stand-alone unit of Alphabet. Its CEO and co-founder, Tony Fadell, stepped down in 2016. That same year, Google began selling an Internet-connected speaker that some analysts thought would fall under the Nest lineup but was instead branded Google Home.

“We’re really at Google, finally,” said Maxime Veron, Nest’s director of product marketing. “It’s very exciting we can really create this cross-team collaboration that we need to make our common customers’ lives easier and better.”

Veron says there’s more opportunity for collaboration now that Nest is again a Google subsidiary. However, analyst Patrick Moorhead with Moor Insights & Strategy says, “It’s not a foregone conclusion that putting these two groups together is going to be a future of success.”

Nest entered the Internet-connected market relatively early, selling its popular thermostat in 2011. It started selling a smoke detector in 2013 and a camera in 2015, though some analysts criticized the company for not unveiling more new product lines fast enough.

Nest’s doorbell, called Nest Hello, marks its first entry into the $334 million video doorbell market, according to 2017 data from research firm Parks Associates. Last month, Amazon announced it had purchased video doorbell company Ring. Companies are battling to get the most access to the front door, according to Dina Abdelrazik, a Parks Associates research analyst.

Nest’s device will notify users when a person is at their door on the Nest app. If the user opts to use Google’s digital assistant, his or her Nest Cam and Google Home speakers will also say out loud, “Someone’s at the front door.” On the app, it’s possible to see who is at the door and speak directly to them. Response options, voiced by the doorbell, include: “Hi there, you can just leave it. Thanks.”

Nest also began selling a $249 Internet-connected lock on Wednesday that it created with lock manufacturer Yale. The lock will work with the Nest doorbell, so if users opt to let a person in when they are not home, they can unlock the door through the app.

Another new Nest device is a $39 temperature sensor that will work with the company’s flagship thermostat and allows different rooms to have different temperatures.

Asked about privacy concerns, Veron says that users have to opt in to using Google digital assistant. Information that Google collects through its assistant includes the types of Nest devices used. Information on users who choose not to use the Google assistant will remain within Nest, the company said.

“There is this notion that trusting Google with your data is a bad thing,” Veron said. “Honestly, the data I’ve seen say otherwise. I think a lot of customers are very happy to share data with Google because of the benefit they get out of it.”

After Nest was named its own division of Alphabet in 2015, its revenue became part of the parent company's “other bets” category, separate from Google, which makes the lion’s share of sales and profit. Now that Nest is part of Google, its finances will eventually fall under Google’s “other revenues” category, but it’s unclear when exactly that will happen.

Abdelrazik said Nest’s financial performance will be under less pressure now that the company has rejoined Google.

Wendy Lee covers Yahoo, Google and Apple for The Chronicle’s tech desk. Previously, she worked at NPR-affiliate 89.3 FM KPCC in Pasadena, Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The Tennessean in Nashville.

Lee grew up in the Bay Area. She won The Chronicle’s high school scholarship in 2001 and landed a summer job as a copyperson at the paper, delivering mail, answering phones and writing news briefs. Lee graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in history and wrote for campus newspaper The Daily Californian.

She is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and a preliminary judge for The Gerald Loeb Awards.